Using the managed metadata service with SharePoint 2010, is it possible to synchronize term sets across different farms (or to export an existing term set to CSV so it can be imported on another farm)?

We recently moved our term set from test to production simply by attaching the managed metadata database on our production site and moving it along with our content database.

The reason this approach was chosen was, that the users had already starting filling in content in the test environment. Be aware that any import/export solution like the one on codeplex will detach any existing term usage on the content database. For example if you use the taxonomy to tag up documents, the data will stay after migrating the content database, but if you just import the existing terms rather than move the taxonomy database, the items on the documents will be read-only since the lists/TaxonomyHiddenList wont be able to identify the "new" terms as they have completely different GUIDS than the original terms.

Note that this is only an issue if you move both content database and terms from one farm to another, not if you move it to a clean content database that doesnt use the terms yet!

Have a look at MatchPoint for SharePoint. It provides a TermImporter with various sources like Sql databases, Active Directory, SharePoint lists or any other custom source and it even keeps the managed metadata synchronized.

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Alex AngasApr 14 '11 at 22:52